Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.

Saturday, 14 May 2016

Palestinians told to raise Israeli flags on ‘independence day’

GULF NEWS – The Israeli regime will force all Palestinian institutions inside the Green Line to raise Israeli flags on the so-called Israeli Independence Day which to the Palestinians and the Arabs is the Day of Nakba (Catastrophe), marking the displacement of hundreds of thousands of natives from their land.

Israeli Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev has instructed ministry crews to put together a plan to force Israel-based institutions, including those run by native Palestinians, to raise the Israeli flag on that day as an introductory step to later force all those institutions to raise the Israeli flags permanently through legislation.

Regev officially announced that all the institutions built by Israel — in broad implementation — must follow the order and raise the Israeli flag.

The proposal of the Israeli minister which enjoys a majority mainly within the Israeli right wing and expected to pass without difficulty, is planned to be brought up to the next Knesset (parliament) session. In the event the proposal is approved by the Knesset, Israeli flags will be raised on all soccer stadia, sports halls, theatres, and cultural centres built with regime funding, whether directly by the Israeli government or indirectly through regime-run lotteries.

The proposal also includes institutions that are either totally or partially funded by the regime and the proposal applies to institutional still-under-construction buildings. The proposal will be applied in all Palestinian towns and villages inside the Green Line (Israeli-claimed territory.

“Israel’s 68th Independence Day and the Day of Remembrance obligate us to guard the state and its symbols,” Regev was quoted by the Yedioth Ahranoth as saying. “It is inconceivable that raising the Israeli flag in culture and sport centres built by the state will be decided by individual discretion. The institutions that Israel erects should proudly wave its flag.”

“This is yet a fresh provocation and escalation against the Palestinian and Arab institutions in [the Green Line] to force those institutions to suspend operations,” said Masoud Ghanayem, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset.

“The proposal is a mere Israeli unworkable clowning play directed against the Palestinian [citizens of Israel],” he said in a statement responding to Regev whom Ghanayem described as an active and known inciting and provoking agent against the Palestinians. “As a minister Regev should be busy to end the routine and systematic discrimination practised by the Jews against the Palestinians of the 1948 areas and promote culture and sports among the Palestinian minority in Israel,” he said.